Top of the big era

Peacock, the streaming platform of Ziweixing Global, is online, and Zhou Buqi receives data reports every day.

On the first day, there were 8 million new users and 5 million paying users;

On the second day, there were 12 million new users and 7.5 million paying users;

On the third day, there were 6.3 million new users and 4.5 million paying users.

In three days, the number of users reached 26 million, and the number of paying members reached 16 million!

This data is really amazing.

It took only three days to surpass a number of film and television streaming platforms such as Amazon and become the third in the United States!

It is second only to Netflix, which has more than 70 million members, and Hulu, which has more than 28 million members.

Judging from the current momentum, there is a great possibility that it will surpass Hulu and rank second before the end of the year!

This product is so successful.

It has a momentum that sweeps the market.

Dennis Zhao is a Chinese American, formerly known as Zhao Dan, who is in his early thirties this year. He graduated from Tsinghua University and came to the United States to study and develop ten years ago. Then he married an American wife and stayed in the local area to develop.

It is worth mentioning that he is a classmate of Wang Xiaochuan, a senior executive of Ziweixing.

With this relationship, plus his own proficiency in the Internet industry, he later joined Ziweixing International.

Half a year ago, Zhou Buqi talked to him and arranged a new position for him, transferring him to Ziweixing Global as the chief operating officer of the streaming platform Peacock, working in Silicon Valley. Peacock's CEO is a native American who works in Hollywood and mainly does a good job in film and television copyrights; the Internet business is actually done by Zhao Dan.

Now Peacock has achieved such a surprising result, which has a lot to do with Zhao Dan's work.

Compared with those foreigners, Zhou Buqi still likes and trusts his own people more.

Peacock's operation center in Silicon Valley is not in the same city as Ziweixing Global's headquarters, but the distance is not far, and the drive is only more than an hour.

This morning, when Zhou Buqi was having breakfast, he saw yesterday's growth data and intended to meet this Dennis Zhao to calm him down. The better the company's performance, the more respect the management will have in the hearts of employees. Peacock has achieved such excellent results, which can be regarded as a pride.

He was accompanied by Netflix CEO Hastings.

"It's not surprising that Peacock can achieve such results." Hastings' mood was actually a bit complicated. "Copyright is the core of the streaming platform. Whoever has high-quality content can have the strongest market competitiveness."

Zhou Buqi smiled, "Product operation is also very important. Peacock is different from Netflix. It is a 'free + paid' platform. According to the existing user structure, the income of free users can reach 30% of the total revenue of the platform."

The income of free users is advertising revenue.

This part of users does not need to spend money to buy membership. They only need to watch some advertisements to watch many films and TV works of poor quality in Peacock. According to model analysis, this part of advertising revenue can account for 30%-35% of the total revenue.

Hastings shook his head, "It's still a bit wasteful."

"Waste?"

Zhou Buqi knew clearly that Hastings was not too excited. After all, Netflix and Peacock are both companies engaged in film and television streaming, and there is a competitive relationship. Once Boss Zhou is partial, Netflix's copyright library will be greatly reduced, which will lead to user loss.

Hastings said: "Peacock's fees are a bit low. The standard fee is only $6.99 per month, and now Netflix has risen to $9.99."

Zhou Buqi said: "After all, Peacock has advertising revenue, and there will not be as many exclusive self-made dramas as Netflix."

Netflix's self-made dramas are growing in scale. In a few years, the cost of filming can exceed $10 billion per year, which can even exceed the investment of any Hollywood giant in the content field. These self-made dramas can only be seen on Netflix's platform, only this one, no semicolon!

Only with high investment can there be high returns, which will make Netflix the most competitive.

In this regard, Ziweixing Global is definitely not good enough and cannot completely abandon the Hollywood tradition.

The movies in Peacock are mainly from Ziweixing Global. The operation model cannot be the same as that of Netflix. These movies must go through the traditional distribution channels of theaters, on-demand and TV broadcasts.

Only the channels of the DVD market will be completely abandoned.

On-demand and TV broadcasts can create huge revenue for a movie, basically creating a revenue scale similar to the box office market of theaters. If a movie shares 200 million US dollars in the box office, then this movie can basically make 200 million US dollars in TV broadcasts around the world.

This is a lot of money.

It must not be given up easily.

Moreover, there are often only two rounds of TV broadcasts of new movies.

The first round is on cable TV stations (pay stations); the second round is on wireless TV stations (free stations).

The degree of value exploration of the film is not that great.

The mechanism of the TV station is not very good at digging into film and television dramas, because the TV stations broadcast it in real time. Once it is broadcast, it is broadcast. The DVD channel is different. This is extremely harmful to film and television products, just like trying to catch a fish. A DVD can be watched over and over again, dozens of times or hundreds of times.

When a user purchases a DVD of a movie, he completely owns the movie. Whenever he wants to watch it, he just needs to take out the DVD and watch it. He can also invite his family to watch it together, or even borrow the DVD. To more relatives and friends, a large number of people around me have watched this movie through a DVD.

In other words, selling a movie DVD may benefit dozens of viewers.

The audience benefits and can watch it without paying any money. For the film and television companies, it is a huge loss.

Streaming media is different.

At first glance, streaming media is very similar to DVD. As long as users pay for it, they can watch movies as many times as they want, share them with relatives and friends, and invite a large number of people to watch them together... However, here is a essential difference.

Buying a DVD is a one-time act.

Pay once and watch for life.

Subscribing to streaming media is a long-term continuous behavior that requires continuous payment every month. This also means that compared with traditional DVD channels, streaming media channels are not so "harmful" to film and television content. They can continue to make money from film and television content, which is more sustainable in the long term.

Therefore, Zhou Buqi has made strategic decisions at Ziweixing Global.

That is, MSI Global will withdraw from the DVD and video tape market and use the streaming media market to make up for this lack of revenue. As for traditional theaters, on-demand and TV channels, we still need to go through them carefully, which means there is a time difference in distribution channels.

This will result in Peacock being less privileged than Netflix.

Netflix’s self-produced dramas can only be watched on Netflix; some of the film and television works produced by Ziweixing Global can be watched on TV stations.

Peacock’s subscription price is naturally lower.

"Peacock is backed by such a large content library, and the higher price is completely reasonable." Hastings sighed, somewhat worried, "If Ziweixing Global takes back all the copyrights one after another in the future, Netflix's inventory will be reduced. It’s far lower than Peacock, but Netflix charges more than Peacock, which is very risky.”

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Well, what you said makes sense, so I have made a decision long ago. MGM will become Netflix's long-term strategic partner, and the copyrights of MGM's film and television works will be exclusively authorized. Give it to Netflix. Ziweixing Universal’s film library is too big, and putting it all under Peacock will really cause too much waste.”

Hastings smiled and said: "This arrangement is the best!"

Zhou Buqi said: "Users will definitely be dissatisfied as subscription fees continue to increase. However, as there are more and more content, the fee remains the same, which is not fair to the platform."

Hastings said: "That's true. The subscription price should be determined by the content library."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "It doesn't matter, Peacock was very successful this time. With this experience, there may be a third or fourth streaming media platform in the future!"

"ah?"

Hastings was slightly startled.

Zhou Buqi said: "Look at the TV market, how big is it? There are hundreds of TV stations in the US market, and only a dozen streaming media platforms. This means that the streaming media market still has huge room for development and charging. . If there is enough content but the price increase is small, then the content library can only be split, just like I split the Ziweixing Global content library into two parts, licensing one part to Netflix and leaving the other part. Same as Peacock. It implements multi-platform system by splitting the content library, thereby charging multiple times.”